Sucre et Sel — Restaurant in Berlin

A really nice little restaurant like in a film. The decoration also seems to reflect the personal taste of the owners. Some velvet with gold, wood and black and white photographs of French film heroes. The fine line between nostalgia, cliché, kitsch is either visible or not, depending on your own taste. My day was rainy and the light and décor drew me into this little restaurant.

The menu reads French. Much like the décor, no experiments are made here. There is duck, beef and other meats. Three salads, one with goat cheese, one with chicken and one with tuna. Soups vary. And the ratatoullie is the Eiffel Tower of the menu. Of course, it can't be missed.

I wanted something light and couldn't decide. The waitress gave me really good advice. It naturally anticipated the ratatoullie with a soup, not because I was hungry, but it sounded like an experiment. Tomato and beetroot soup.

Red with red. I like that. Cooking in colours. The Aztec god fruit with the profane European. I was hoping for simple divinity. Simple humanity came. And that is always good. It tasted like loving (and extremely hot) home cooking in the guise of a Mitte restaurant with velvet, gold and wood and old-time French classics blaring from the good speakers.

The food actually tasted like an experiment. A successful one, but not a French one.

When I asked if Tasmanian mountain pepper (the French know what I'm talking about...) had ever been used to spice up the soup or offered as an option, they kindly replied in the negative. It turned out that the pepper variety was unknown to the palate of my counterpart. The slight aniseed flavour was not hers and therefore she did not cook with it. Who doesn't know that? It's the same with coriander. Some people hate it and others like it.

But it turned out that the excellent waitress was also the chef, among other things. The decision about the seasoning of the soup was made according to her personal taste. Nice to get to know her taste and also to be able to pay for it.

Then came the ratatouille. Probably every foodie knows this dish since the animated film. It is not easy to arrange peppers, tomatoes, courgettes and aubergine in such a way that everything has the desired cooking point, but the aubergine does what it is supposed to. Transporting flavours and fat and maintaining a certain consistency. The mashed potato was also like that of a loving grandmother, but who could not have been French. Why? I'll just say butter and sift twice. So it was without a doubt (!!!) a good homemade, delicious mash, but not French.

I can't remember if tomatoes or peppers were missing, but one of them was. Didn't mind, as it's all about the colours, red green and aubergine were represented and all had a good cooking point. The aubergine unfortunately was well steamed, ok salted and nothing more. However, the dish didn't taste so much French as it did like well-made home cooking outside of France with the look and ingredients of a ratatouille.

Price-wise, everything was fully reasonable. The atmosphere was great. The food was not French, but still tasty enough to finish the meal. Perhaps because I didn't have high expectations, I wasn't disappointed. From a German perspective, real French food is expensive and not cheap. Why? I'll just say minimum quality and "la technique".

I strongly suspect that the restaurateurs decide very much according to personal taste and do not follow the original recipes. As long as there is no ignorance behind it or simply overconfidence and stubbornness, it's...

A big thank you to the (i suppose and hope) main waiter who was lovely tried to fix the mistakes his colleagues made. The double booking in the beginning, that left us without a table in the beginning (in spite of a reservation) was not a big deal. We found a table ourselves outside which was fine for us in the end. It was a really busy day and that stuff happens. The long waiting time for everything (also the first drinks) did not bother us neither, that happens - it was quite full. The starter (3 person starter) was yummy, so after that everything was forgotten. As it was quite crowded, we waiting a fair amount of time till the next course arrive - which is fine again at least for us. Which really bummed me of and got me to write my - first ever - review here was A) for the second time (i was there before as i had organized a firm dinner at the place) Entrecote steak was not blue whatsoever. With that prices i expect the kitchen to know what they are doing. But ok. I ate the duck (which was good, i can recommend it) but in the end it is the principle thats talking - if you can not do it don´t offer it, no problem. B) which was the bigger issue and left a very bitter taste in my mouth was the desert. I do not mind if there is not enough desert - creme brulee or tarte au chaucolat - for all the customers, but if you offer me a cheesecake instead and i accept, kindly do not bring me 1/3 of the portion the clients on the table next to me are eating. I am an very easy customer, but even if i am a fool - this evening i am your customer, and you should not let even the most foolish customer feel as he was one (also noone of us commented on anything the whole night). When i refused the piece and the waiter apologized and magically a bigger piece appeared. Thanks for that but as my reaction shows (i refused it) that is not cool. Don´t save money on this front because you will mess up a lovely and rather pricey (for some) experience for people. This should not happen in an establishment of your standard and if that does happen, which is human here a tip - when i used to work in service, if someone messed up i would offer and insist on compensations and feel good methods, such as free desert or whatever. We had some bumpy moments the whole evening, which was fine but the end left me with a no go. Thanks again to the waiter who was trying hard, but the bitter taste is stronger than the food that i...

I used to enjoy going to Sucre et Sel, as the food, the service and the staff on site are great. I've been going there a few times a year since 2014, later I've also started to order there for delivery. I never had issues when eating in the restaurant, but recently there have been too many issues with the delivery and the last one was the last straw. We ordered, among other things, the duck leg (Confit de Canard), the description on Wolt (and I later checked, the menu on the restaurant's website says the same thing) says that it is with apples and honey. What we got was completely different: a brown sauce with plums (not mentioned on the menu), a ridiculous single small piece of apple and absolutely no honey, two of us tasted it, we could not detect honey at all. We complained through Wolt customer service, any refund was denied, no explanations, no apologies, no compensation. Mistakes can happen, but then, one should stand up for it. I did not feel valued as a loyal customer, it seems they do not care about customer satisfaction (anymore). I used to be a regular for 10 years, but now, it's over, quite a shame, but I can't support a business that treats customers this way. Either they don't believe/trust us when we say it did not taste as it should according to what the description says, either the description is wrong, anyway, there is definitely an issue when you don't get what you excepted and the restaurant doesn't aknowledge a mistake...